The End of DOMA

Glenn Greenwald over at Salon has a post on the possibility of Obama working to repeal The Defense of Marriage Act. Many in California, myself included, were simply appalled by the passage of proposition 8. Rest assured that the youth of California has no plans for letting this hang around long term. If prop 8 is not abrogated by the courts i give it less than 10 years before it is repealed by ballot initiative. Until then, the best move for an increase in gay rights is to kill DOMA. Glenn seems to think its possible if not likely and i agree with him.

Here is Obama on his view regarding same sex marriage. Watch all in full if you can and if you may only watch one watch the first one because the follow up is pretty good,







and Biden From the "debate" with Sarah w. Palin,



Other than Alan Keys is crazy, what we can take away from this is that Barack Obama and Joe Biden clearly do not now nor will they ever be a vocal proponent of gay marriage. Obama simply does not believe in it. It is not rationale for us to hold that Obama secretly favors gay marriage but chooses to keep that secret. He is consistent and strong is his advocacy for a civil unions instead of marriage.

What Obama has said is that he is very opposed to DOMA.

Barack Obama has, on numerous occasions, emphatically expressed his support for repealing DOMA. When he ran for the U.S. Senate in 2004, he wrote a letter to Chicago's Windy City Times, calling DOMA "abhorrent" and its repeal "essential," and vowing: "I opposed DOMA in 1996. It should be repealed and I will vote for its repeal on the Senate floor." But he went on to cite what he called the "the realities of modern politics" in order to proclaim (accurately) that DOMA's repeal at that time -- 2004 -- was "unlikely with Mr. Bush in the White House and Republicans in control of both chambers of Congress." After Tuesday, that excuse is no longer availing.

We know that Obama continues to hold these positions because he reaffirmed them earlier in the campaign for president.

"He supports the complete repeal of D.O.M.A. which is the same position he has held since early 2004," Obama spokesman Ben LaBolt told ABC News.

In order for President Obama's positions on Civil Unions to be coherent he must repeal at least part of DOMA. Specifically he must repeal section three which is the provision that expressly forbids the federal government from extending the same civil rights to gays that it does to heteros. This was a position that was advocated by Sen Clinton in the primaries and would allow for the federal government to make real civil unions possible without disturbing the traditional definition of marriage.

To be clear right now Obama and Biden's stated position on civil unions and LGBT rights is not compatable with DOMA. ONe of them has to go and really i dont imagine DOMA is going to be the winner on this one for an important reason. The repealing of doma is a position that Obama did not originally hold when he was running for senate in 2004,

When he began his campaign for U.S. Senate, he told a group called Independent Voters of Illinois -- Independent Precinct Organization that he supported D.O.M.A. He then switched to an anti-D.O.M.A. position on Feb. 11, 2004, as the March 2004 Illinois Democratic primary drew near. According to Obama’s staff, the Illinois Democrat changed positions mid-campaign because he heard from gay friends how hurtful D.O.M.A. was.

Obama presumably continues to have a personal stake in this. The only question becomes "when?" With the economic crisis and the health care initiative and the energy initiatives and the infrastructure projects Obama has a full plate. Will Obama be willing to spend the political capital it will take to get this done with so many other things on his plate? It is clear he might have to fight some of the leadership on this because as Glenn points out,

The conventional Beltway wisdom has already ossified, quite predictably, that Obama and the Democrats must scorn "the Left" and, despite polling data showing widespread support for equal rights for same-sex couples, such a move would be deemed by Beltway media mavens as coming from "the Left." Nancy Pelosi is running around decreeing that "the country must be governed from the middle," while Harry Reid emphasizes that Democrats have received no mandate from the election. And, most significantly of all, Democrats are being told they must avoid the "overreaching" of Clinton's first two years, defined by his attempt to eliminate the ban on gay people serving in the military -- something likely to scare Democrats from touching any gay issues.

Pelosi and Reid are either gun shy or just too clever by half. They are not all that good at playing the rhetorical games with out getting burned. Also keep in mind Obama is not Bill Clinton and he is learning from the mistakes Bill made. He is not going to be pushed around or marginalized like some fear. At the very least he has a very large and impressive email list and voter database that provides massive fund raising potential. The site, change.gov, also allows you to sign up for emails. I can wait to start getting emails from my president with updates on what he is doing for me. This stuff will provide a considerable carrot for those in congress to help Obama out when he has something important he needs to get done. Obama is not without leverage.

In the aftermath of the Prop 8 passage the potential for the end of DOMA is heartening. I don't actually have any gay friends that i am aware of but i consider gay people to be people as equal as any one else in this country. That they should be treated as second class citizens makes me physically ill. In light of this i was happy to realize that Obama's current position is incompatible with the continuation of DOMA and he is on record in favor of repealing it. Hopefully, that change Obama was talking about was a change in treating LGBT people from an oppressed class to full citizens with all the rights and privileges they deserve.

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How Obama Won the Election.

This is not designed to be overconfident or to claim victory before it has happened. This is actually my attempt to predict the punditry that will occur should Obama win the election. Everyone always wants to do postmortems on campaigns. People are still writing them on the clinton campaign. I am going to do mine three weeks in advance making it a pre-postmortem and we can come back to it later and assess how right i am about the punditry and my predictions on why Obama won. If i was ambitious enough and had enough time i would turn this into a book ready to go just after election day. I dont, so this will have to suffice.

How Obama Won the Election.

How did Barack Obama, a relative new comer, an african american, a man with a funny name, manage to defeat John McCain, formerly one of the most popular politicians in America? John McCain began this campaign as a well respected maverick feared by dems as a man able to draw independents with his vaunted political independence and foriegn policy expertise. McCain has finished the campaign with his reputation and legacy in taters a sad object of pity, a man who gave it all up in a second failed bid for the presidency. Obama did with a simple premise many writers and average joes can relate to, "show not tell".

Many will point to the economic crisis as the moment when Americans woke up to the fact that the last eight years of republican rule had led to economic disaster. The tale is that but for that black swan McCain, who lost in a devastating electoral college and popular vote landslide, would have been either victorious or at least in a dead heat. As late as September 16 McCain had a lead over Sen Obama in the Rasmussen daily tracking poll. Sept 14 happens to be the day that Lehman filed for bankruptcy. September 15, 2008 is the day McCain proclaimed the fundamentals are strong. Coincidence? Not really. The deteriorating economic situation was indeed part of the reason for the collapse but not in the way many seem to be telling the story.

It is true that generally people credit the dems with being better on the economy and domestic issues. It is also true that they are better. For McCain who entered the race with shaky economic credibility at best the economic crisis was, as he is fond of saying, an existential challenge of his candidacy. Things did not have to turn out that the economy would sink McCain. In fact the financial crisis presented the best most clear opportunity to lead and to prove his economic credibility possible. McCain could not have asked for a better stage to display his econ cred and had he managed to do so the race would have been completely different.

The crisis presented a rare opportunity for voters in presidential elections. Elections generally are all about promises. Candidates say they will do things but because they are not president we have to take them at their word. Here though we had to people in a position to exert direct influence on the solution. McCain and Obama both reside in the senate and could participate and direct the solution to the problem. Here was chance not to just tell the voters what they would do but to actually do it. McCain failed. He failed not in a minor way but in truly an epic manner.

His big chance to erase his weakest point and he instead generated a meta narrative that he was confused, erratic and generally lost. He inspired not confidence but utter dismay at his over the top and immediate reversals on the existence of a problem. his campaign non-suspension will be a historical reference point for gimmickry. McCain was demonstrating his in ability to lead or deal with a major crisis in any comprehensive or cogent manner. He took credit for the passage of a bill that actually failed. He undermined himself at every step. All of this only reinforced the narrative of McCain the fallen. The man with tactics but no strategy, a narrative set in motion on the fateful day of Aug 29.

Aug 29 is the day the other great failure of the McCain campaign occurred. This is the day that the McCain Campaign announced his VP choice of the little known Gov of Alaska Sarah Palin. Billed as an attractive looking, reforming hockey mom Gov Palin was the immediate darling of the right. She was an instant sensation that captured the news cycle completely erasing the power of Obama's convention speech and securing McCain's base at the same time. However, she was a non-vetted choice with some major skeletons already peeking out of the closet. She would prove disastrous.

On the heels of her convention speech Palin was in incredibly high demand, every one wanted to get to know the GOP's apparent savior and rising star. However, she was held back from media interviews. Slowly but surely as information trickled out about her support of the bridge to nowhere in alaska, her record of championing earmarks as a small town mayor, her troopergate problems the media began to demand answers. The biggest question was simply how she was qualified to take over in the event of McCain's demise. What foriegn policy cred did she have? Inquiring minds wanted to know and on Sept 11, 7 years after the fatefuly fall of the towers we would get an insight into the vacuous mind of sarah palin. Sep 11, 2008 Palin interviews with Charlie Gibson and not only fails to respond to the question on the Bush Doctrine but tries to pretend she does understand it with the now classic, "in what respect charlie?"

Here is the point where McCain's experience and country first arguments were destroyed. The naked opportunism and cynicism of the Palin pick was confirmed. McCain's first decision as president and instead of country first as he had been telling us he showed us McCain first. He showed us by his choice of a lady who could not name a newspaper she read, or a supreme court case other than roe, or answer coherently about anything. her answers in the catie curic interview were so ridiculous that snl appropriated her bailout answer whole. Now it is clear she cant even tell the truth. Palin started a narrative that the economic crisis cemented. McCain, when it came time to walk the walk, ran away.

To this point i have focused exclusively on John McCain and how he undermined himself. None of this would have been as damaging had Sen Obama not displayed the complete opposite tendencies at every turn. If Obama had proved as inept as McCain has shown himself to be he might be losing no matter what McCain was doing. Instead Barack Obama has displayed the qualities we look for in a leader. His first chance to make a presidential decision was Joe Biden. Biden was a conventional pick. Certainly non-threatning Biden is an elder statesman fully capable of assuming the office of the presidency if called upon. Biden was safe and reassuring displaying, if not flair, a pragmatic understanding that the importance is on governing not just winning.

Biden is also someone many people like because of his blunt nature. He exudes regular guy at the same time he displays a depth and breadth of policy knowledge only a decades experienced sen could have. The difference between Palin and Biden could not have come off worse for Sen McCain. Biden may not have been the sexiest pick but he was certainly not a drag on the ticket.

Then came Obama's chance to display the qualities we look for in a president in the turmoil of the financial crisis. Instead of bouncing from policy to policy Obama was deliberate and put forth some basic bailout principles that were hard to attack. He called for anti-golden parachute language, protections for the tax payer investment that was being demanded both in accountability in how it was spent and in possible recovery or profit on the money. Obama was cool and collected.

Obama tried to get a joint statement with mccain but mccain was determined to try and take credit for everything. Obama made statements about not wanting to blow up the negotiations with presidential politics proven correct after mccain parachuted into washington. At every turn Obama was making responsible decisions. He let the system work as opposed to trying to blow it up and take credit.

After the bailout and the economic downturn became the topics everyday Obama put together comprehensive plans to deal with the problems. He talked about the middle class. He made the economy and the failure of the regulatory system the focal point of the campaign. people were scarred of the economy so oabam addressed their fears. This was never more in evidence than in the friday night debate during the bailout negotiations.

In that debate Obama stood on stage with McCain and talked policy in a calm and collected manner. he was safe and he was boring. those are the qualities we are looking for in a candidate during crisis. we want the steady hand who not only understands what is going on but is capable of explaining to the people like adults. Obama stuck to policy in a time when people wanted that.

Ultimately that is how obama won the campaign. He was a man able to stick to policy and to demonstrate to people that he was a man who was serious about solving the problems in our country. He showed the people with his laser like focus on the economy and his emphasis on the middle class that he gets it. As McCain has gone off on more and more personal smears obama sticks to policy and what he is going to do to fix the problems the country faces. His demonstration of poise is more striking when placed next to Sen McCain. One man demonstrates the qualities of a president while the other demonstrates his loss of shame.

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Biden Wins, Palin does not crash and burn

The debate proceeded more or less like i thought it would. Palin stuck to her folksy ways and repeatedly failed to answer questions put to her by Gwen Iffil who did a excellent job moderating. Palin was very shallow and wrong through out the night on the factual and substance basis for her answers. She contradicted established McCain camp positions leading McCains campaign to have to clarify some of those statements like the one on gay rights and on bankruptcy court judges altering mortgages. She was bereft of substance during most of the night. That however was not her goal. Her goal was simply not to flail about like a fish on the deck of ship, she passed that test.

So i think most people came away thinking she was not as bad as the couric interviews showed her to be. She avoided the few follow up questions posed to her and did a decent job showing her personality.

Biden simply rocked on everything but the issue of clean coal. That is by far the softest position obama has. Carbon sequestration is not now or ever going to be a viable approach to coal. Its not real and that Obama continues with it is so surprising in many ways.

Biden destroyed Palin on Iraq and healthcare and the issue of chey and the vp office. he made no major gaffes. He won big and Palin really did not belong on that stage with him.

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She was not that bad

every one on the net will be doing a biden-palin debate post so i wanted to get in on the action. My prediction based on having read the chronicles about palin's debate in alaska and heard from a person who moderated one on rachel maddow is that palin will stop her skid, at least for now.

I base this primarily on the way the debate is formatted and the 90 second answers without follow up. The Lincoln-Douglas debates this is not. Look for palin to filibuster questions and throw out cute anecdotes and some buzz words. She will be very shallow but generally good humored. She will play up the awe-shucks nature of her candidacy and barley skim the surface on policy questions.

The results of this will be that people get a fairly positive impression of her and many people will simply think that she is not as bad as has been portrayed by the slow roll out of couric footage, a new disaster for every night. the debate will lack the follow up questions that dig a little deeper into issues and answers. It is the follow ups that destroy palin. She can razzle dazzle on the initial question but cant go beyond that.

Biden for his part will go the route of the elder statesman and simply demonstrate his competancy. I doubt the debate even has the feel of biden v palin as much as the palin show. People trust Biden and they are not really looking for him to put her away in a show of her ignorance. He will try to put some pressure on her to follow up or go deeper into her answers but i just dont see it happening.

One possibility to keep in mind is that palin gets into a habit of making snide and sarcastic remarls. There might be an opportunity for biden to deliver a set down that reveals how small and inadequate palin is. I dont rate this possibility highly.

Over all i think palin halts her nose dive as people are distracted by her in the debate. They will have a tougher time connecting the debate palin with the interview palin. In any event it should be fun tv...

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The “McCain is a Liar” attacks will not work.

An unrebutted lie becomes the truth and a rebutted lie is quickly forgotten. That is the operating principle of the McCain campaign. Lie, lie, lie about anything and everything. Get those lies into all available media. Saturate the market with them until they become received wisdom. Force Obama to defend against them all the time. It is a strategy that may be without honor, but it is a strategy that wins. Understanding this, progressives become irate. The blogosphere cries, “Liar, liar, pants on fire!!” Barack Obama says, “you can’t just make stuff up”. Well, with all due respect to Sen. Obama, yes you can. Yes, you can just make stuff up.

To answer why you can “just make stuff up” I answer the question of why calling McCain a liar will not work. There are multiple factors at work that ultimately make it unworkable to attack McCain in this way. The first is that John McCain still has a vast army of water carriers and tire swing riders to excuse him at every turn.

His legion of admirers in the press, while shrinking, is still vast. He benefits from the well known conservative bias in the media. Look what happened when Keith Olbermann decried the politicization of 9/11 at the RNC, he was demoted. Tom Brokaw still calls McCain a Maverick despite all the evidence to the contrary. In addition to the conservatives who populate the networks he also has Fox, a ready made propaganda wing. These groups are almost always willing to propagate his falsehoods without challenge. Calling McCain a liar will just get the person skeptical criticism and questions about why you wont admit the surge worked.

The second reason beyond the press is that Obama has already undermined any character attacks against John McCain. He and Joe Biden do this constantly in a number of ways that are constantly carried about the press. Obama declares,

I have never suggested that Senator McCain picks his positions on national security based on politics or personal ambition. I have not suggested it because I believe that he genuinely wants to serve America's national interest.

Biden does the same thing only a lot worse.

"John McCain is my friend," said the loquacious Blue Hen. "I admire John McCain. I know of no man or woman I have ever met that has more personal courage than John McCain. We have been friends for over 33 years. We have traveled together. When John was Navy liaison he staffed me for three or four years everywhere I traveled in the world.

"Jill and John are good friends," Biden said, referring to his wife Dr. Jill Biden, who had just introduced him. "Matter of fact there’s a best-selling book written about us called The Nightingale's Song about John and some of his graduating class from Annapolis that references Jill and John in the book as good buddies.

"She doesn’t like the reference,'" Biden added, "but John, John’s a great guy. John was staffing me in Greece. I was meeting with the Prime Minister Papandreou and we were supposed to go to this fancy dinner and Jill said 'Do we have to go to this dinner?' And John said, 'No, no, no I know this great place for dinner.'

"And there was a place literally down on the docks, where Zorba lived I think, and so I had to go to the fancy thing and I come back down and I find it, and we’re wandering through these alleys on the dock -- you’re gonna get very angry at this Jill -- but I walk around the corner and there’s these cement tables like down at the shore you know, the cement base ,the cement table, and I walk in and Jill and John are standing up on the table drinking ouzo dancing with one another, and I’m thinking, 'I’ve never trusted John since then, Jillie.'

"But he’s a great guy," Biden said, "and if John called me today and said 'Joe -,' like when they went after John McCain, when Bush went after him in South Carolina with the scurrilous comments they made about his character, I called him and said, 'John, where do you want me? I’m an Al Gore man but where do you want me? I will show up anywhere in America to testify to the kind of man you are.' And he is a good man, he is a good man."

Now there is a school of thought that says you can say nice things about someone then come in and kneecap them. Except, that to do that, you have to say, “Bless his heart” when you compliment the opponent. There are certain signals you have to send to let people know what is coming. Biden does way too much of the soft stuff up front. It effectively makes John McCain immune to character attacks. You cannot call your friend a political opportunist and a liar. Who admits to those types of friends? It just does not fit and people will reject it.

Think about the logic you are asking people to engage in,

Preface I: John McCain is honorable and my friend.
Preface II: Liars are not honorable or my friends.
Result: John McCain is a liar and my friend.

Something is wrong in that construction. It does not make sense. Obama has restricted himself to working with policy. He does this to try and win a mandate to govern with. John McCain knows he cannot fight on policy and has no problems with doing things to get elected. He will just apologize later. Therefore, Obama has unilaterally disarmed himself.

The new politics he advocates restricts Obama. As he freely admits, personal attacks are not a part of it. McCain and the press will hammer Obama on all sides if he deviates from the narrow line of policy. He is boxed in by self created rules and in doing so boxed in everyone else.

Obama will be forced to answer for any of the attacks that others launch on McCain that call him a liar. The press will ask Obama if he believes that McCain is a liar and he will dodge the question or say no. The latter is more probable based on my own observation of how Obama operates and the new politics rules. The effect of this is that 527 style attacks are totally ruled out. Everything has to come from Obama and it is very limiting.

While I believe that John McCain is a political opportunist and that he is lying on an almost constant basis in this campaign, calling him a liar will have limited effect. Obama and team should stop telling people how honorable McCain is. McCain will run from any policy discussion. If Obama is counting on the debates to engage in the policy talk I think he has sorely miscalculated. We know how stupid and inane debates can be and trusting that the moderators will be able to push back against McCain effectively is a huge risk. What is Obama going to do when McCain lies in front of his face to the country during the debate? Will he be able to call such an upstanding, honorable patriot, a liar then? I don’t know.

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The Cheney Effect

digby was responding to poll numbers regarding Sarah Palin and the fact that people did not seem to care about that. I covered those numbers in my earlier post. I interpreted that to mean people dont make logical connections and answer off the top of their heads leading to conflicting statements. This was digby's interpretation:

One can only conclude that a lot of people think that naming an unqualified person for VP speaks well of McCain's decision making. Should we call this the "Cheney effect" --- a desire to put the Vice President back in a ceremonial role after eight years of having a puppeteer behind the scenes pulling the president's strings? Or are they just Republican fools?

It brings up an interesting question, is there such a Cheney effect? I suspect not. I do not think people much care about the VP beyond the extent that they could end up President. People do not know what the VP does everyday. When Sarah Palin made that statement she was laughed at but you know what? i doubt more than 5% of the US could give you a good idea of what the VP actually does every day.

I could be wrong though. Questions about Cheney's job performance are regularly asked as is peoples opinions of him. As of August 18th Cheney was viewed very negatively by 40% of those polled and 15% view him somewhat negatively. Compare this to 7% very positive and 18% somewhat. This is very much in line with his job approval rating in june 18% good and 75% bad. People have a personal dislike for Cheney and think he sucks at his job. What these numbers are not telling us is why. Do they know what he is supposed to be doing? I suspect that he is simply catching flak because he is a major part of the Bush administration and even if people dont know exactly what he is supposed to be doing they can tell he sucks at his job.

So we know that people do not like Cheney. Does this really tell us anything about the office though? Does the dislike for Cheney transfer into a dislike for the office and a desire to see its power reduced? In May of 2007 Harris conducted a poll all about Cheney. It gives us some insight into this question. 38% of people felt that the office of the VP was too powerful and 38% did not. You may be able to tell that that is only 76%, meaning that 24% had no opinion. We need to look at the cross tabs to get a clearer picture.

Dems and Independents come in very close to each other on the question of whether or not Cheney is too powerful. Dems at 49% and Indys at 46% with each category having only 28% say he is not too powerful. that is 2-1 saying that Cheney is too powerful. These numbers are decidedly different with the GOP. Only 20% of Republicans felt he was too powerful compared to 60% who felt he was not. That is a pretty big split. However it does not support the Cheney effect as being evident in the numbers digby was looking at.

We know from other polls that the Republicans are going to be far more likely to view her as a legitimate pick

Conservatives have a favorable impression of her by a 79-8 margin, but this falls to 43-35 among moderates and 26-46 among liberals. Likewise, by a 48-22 margin, conservatives think she's ready to be President, but she loses this question 23-54 among moderates and 9-67 among liberals.

So we have the people who think Cheney is not too powerful also heavily in favor of Palin. This leads me to believe that overall there is not going to be a Cheney Effect where the populace is clamoring for a less powerful vice president and glad to see McCain picking a person more inclined to accept a less powerful role.

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So basically no one cares?

This is why i think it make no sense to talk about a polarized country and why i maintain that the people in the middle are not ideologically sophisticated. People with sophisticated ideologies filter things through them and that is how the generate policy expectations. Now there are going to be topics where most people simply won't know enough or topics where the answer has no impact on their lives so it is ignored. Fine. That is almost understandable. One of those topics though is not the invasion of a foriegn country. Matt Yglesias has been writing about the failure of most public opinion polls to dig deep enough to get at peoples real attitudes. What you get when you do this digging is that most people dont care about a great deal of policy.


Here Yglesias' his take on the lethargy of the populace.

Basically, the center of public opinion was prepared to defer to official policy and not demanding anything in particular. I can’t at all prove it, but I’m almost 100 percent sure that the situation with regard to Iran is the same. Most people just don’t have detailed or strongly held views about the broad range of topics. If the President says bombing Iran is necessary and can find a bunch of people in suits and ties to go on television as “experts” and say that the bombing was necessary for American security, I’m sure a majority would go along with it. But that’s not the same as saying that public opinion is demanding bombing. Probably if you had a president who just never talked about Iran, 80 percent of the public would pay no attention whatsoever to the progress (if any) of Iran’s nuclear program.

There is nothing really wrong in this. Most people are just not experts on Iran or national security. When you lack knowledge in a specialized field you ask people you think should know. In the case of Iran and Iraq and other foriegn affairs people generally take their queue from the media. If that media happens to be subverted by propagandists then more than likely people will accept the out come given them.

Towards the end of the quote he brings up the point about the lack of coverage leading to a lack of opinion. It is very true. One of the most important roles that the media and other elites play in the US is in highlighting what is most important topics of the day. They are the opinion leaders. If they start running lots of stories about how important the fighting in Congo is than that becomes a major issue. Rarely is ever to issues spring up organically. Even with the blogosphere shouting about certain things those items are rarely featured in the TM.

This is not to say that whatever the TM starts shouting about will become important. What happens is that that topic is covered to death and people generate short term opinions, not held vary strongly. The media raves about the importance of something so people feel like they should have an opinion. This does not always work though as illustrated by the recent VP picks.

The Tm considered Obama's selection of running mate to be uber important. If he picked the wrong person he would open himself up to all kinds of attacks and if he picked the right person he could seal the election. Here are the results of the Biden pick in the Usa Today/ Gallup poll.

More than seven in 10 Americans say the choice of Biden won't affect their vote for president.

Positive impact on 20% of people, negative impact on 10%.

There is further evidence that people really are not that invested or sophisticated when it come to opinion. 70% of people just did not care. We see similar results for the Palin pick, widely panned as being horrendous.

67%, say putting Palin on the ticket won't affect their vote.

Of those who say the running mates will make a difference, 18% say Palin makes them more likely to vote for McCain, 11% less likely.

Palin is widely regarded as unfit to assume the duties as president and yet many people still say that will not affect their vote. Here is something the media and opinion makers have been all over and it has had little to no impact. There is more evidence that people just don't form consistent opinions. Here is a recent poll conducted on the Palin and Biden picks

Is Sarah Palin qualified to serve as president?

Yes: 45%

No: 50%

No opinion: 5%

Do you think John McCain’s choice of Sarah Palin reflects favorably or unfavorably on McCain’s ability to make important presidential decisions?

Favorably: 57%

Unfavorably: 40%

No opinion: 2%

“John McCain chose Sarah Palin because he thought having a woman on the ticket would help him get elected?”

Agree: 75%

Disagree: 25%

Logically several of the answers are in conflict. If you said that she is unqualified shouldn't that give you an unfavorable opinion of McCain's judgment? Also people fully understand that this was a decision about politics and not governance but that failed to make a dent in their feelings about McCain. The connections that should be made are just not there. I suspect that this is because people just dont care all that much and are giving the first answer off the top of their heads to pollsters. If questions that have a connection are not asked in sequence people would be apt to forget the previous question and give conflicting answers.

Part of the reason i think you see this with Palin is that because people dont care too much they have not given her much scrutiny. She is virtually unknown outside of Alaska. It is possible that when people really take a look at her things go south for McCain. This is suggested by one of Frank Luntz's focus groups covered in Time by Joe Klein.

Another week, another Frank Luntz/AARP focus group of undecided voters--this one in Minneapolis and with some bad news for John McCain: they don't like the choice of Sarah Palin for vice president. Only one person said Palin made him more likely to vote for McCain; about half the 25-member group raised their hands when asked if Palin made them less likely to vote for McCain. They had a negative impression of Palin by a 2-1 margin...a fact that was reinforced when they were given hand-dials and asked to react to Palin's speech at her first appearance with McCain on Friday---the dials remained totally neutral as Palin went through her heart-warming(?) biography, and only blipped upwards when she said she opposed the Bridge to Nowhere--which wasn't quite the truth, as we now know.

The results here illustrate that the exposure to Pallin, when people really have to think about her, is a negative. So it might be too much to expect that people know about or previously cared about Sarah Palin. Only time will tell how this shakes out.

When dealing with something you love and obsess over it is hard to fathom that other people dont care about it nearly as much as you do. When that something is politics, something that actually affects everyone, it is doubly hard. I think that people need to take a step back and realize that the general public really is not that interested, even if 38 million people watched Obamas speech.

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Biden Should Not Back Off

When Joe Biden was selected to be Obama;s running mate it was with the idea that he would act as an attack man. He would hit McCain on matters of national security and foriegn policy. It was also assumed that he would go after whoever was picked as McCain's running mate in the Vp debates. With the choice of Sarah Palin though there are some voices wondering whether he should back off or be extra careful about dealing with Palin in the debates. I think this is the wrong strategy.

If Biden pulls his punches it does a couple things. The first is that it looks sexist like he thinks Palin is not tough enough to handle things because she is a woman. The few Hillary supporters out there who are going to vote for Palin because she is a woman would see this sexism immediately. It would just add fuel to the idea that the Dems think women are not up to the job. Treat her like you would have treated any other VP pick.

The second risk with backing off Palin is that it might make some think she is actually qualified. She is not. Biden cannot risk sitting back and letting people get the impression she deserves to be on the same stage as him. He needs to make it abundantly clear that she was an affirmative action pick. Revealing her lack of readiness is imperative.

Some people might worry about a back lash for "picking" on a woman. This is absurd as this particular woman wants to be first in line for the Presidency should something happen to McCain. Ignoring her or patronizing her is not the way to go. She needs to be revealed as a nice enough lady but totally wrong on the issues and totally unready to take over the Presidency.

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Candidate McCain vs Senator McCain

It is the one thing i dislike about the dems. They are unwilling to tell it like it is. They tip toe around issues and worry that it will make them look mean or reflect negatively on them. They have the stench of fear wafting from them. It is not hard to understand why after watching first Gore then Kerry lose in situations where they had no business losing. They had to watch as the GOP tore apart Max Cleland a true American Hero. They deal with a media who have long since abandoned the idea of personal integrity and promoting the truth and have instead prided themselves on fake balance and their own opinions.

It is for those reasons that i think we here the Dems afraid to go after McCain in a real way. The prominent Dems always lead with their feelings of friendship with McCain as Amy Sullivan explains:

A number of speakers have made reference to their personal friendship with John McCain, carefully noting how much they admire him, before going on to criticize him. And that's effective to a point — "more in sorrow than in anger" plays differently than straight-on attacks.

But Democrats might find it would be more effective if they explained why they're so disappointed with their friend John McCain. How did this great guy they admire so much became a candidate whose positions appall them? It wasn't a fluke, it wasn't like he had a personality transplant. And the answer would seem to fit perfectly into a powerful Democratic narrative. John McCain changed because that's what he had to do to win the Republican nomination. That's what the reigning conservative ideology and interests demanded of him.

It is very simple, John McCain sold out. He sold out for power and he sold out for ambition. He is doing what he thinks it takes to win. Maybe he is doing it out of an ends justify the means rationale, get into power to save America, i dont know. I do know he wrote this in his memoir

"I didn't decide to run for president to start a national crusade for the political reforms I believed in or to run a campaign as if it were some grand act of patriotism. In truth, I wanted to be president because it had become my ambition to be president. . . . In truth, I'd had the ambition for a long time."

Even if you disregard his internal thoughts the evidence is overwhelming that McCain will do anything to get elected. There are at least 75 confirmed swings in major positions since he began his Capt. Ahabesque pursuit of the presidency.

You can feel the dems edging around the main point but just staying outside. The main point is the synthesis of the Kerry and Clinton and Biden speeches. McCain is a candidate who has sold out everything he ever believed in to win the nomination of a party whose world view has brought us the last eight abysmal years. It was his choice to abandon truth in pursuit of power. He embraced a demonstrably disastrous and discredited world view for power. Its not only cynical and pathetic its dangerous. What would a man willing to sell his soul for power do in office?

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Convention Time

It is finally here. The conventions mark the beginning of the "real" general election. The campaign finance rules change and the feel of the campaign shifts. For those interested in Team Obama the time during and right after the convention should be an indicator of where they plan to take the general. The convention serves as a symbolic turning point allowing the campaign to shift gears are make a transition to something new without it looking like desperation. McCain too has several questions surrounding him that the immediate post convention tone will answer. Here is what i think we should look for:

1. Obama on Offense.

John McCain has made a lot of mistakes during the course of the campaign. Most of these stem from the fact that he is willing to do whatever it takes to win, including deception. These deceptions make it tough for McCain to maintain a consistent and plausible identity. It has cost him his brand and has begun to sour the press on him, if only a little. Obama has so far been pretty light on the attack refusing to get into a real fight with McCain. The McCain Moment where he forgot how many houses he owns gave a glimpse of how they can attack. Now they just need to keep on the attack.

I suspect that Biden will play a big part in this. He is known as someone willing to bring the lumber when needed and Obama may have been waiting till he had his VP to lay into McCain. Biden's wit should prove a welcome addition.

Look also for other prominent Dems to start laying into McCain. The Obma camp has been very concerned about control over everything and this appears to have lessened the role for other Dems to go out an hammer McCain. All the messages seem to come from Obama himself. I think he could use the help and a coordinated offensive needs to come from multiple angles, surrogates help with that.

2. What will the Clintons do?

McCain has made a point of appealing to the possibly disaffected Clinton voters. He hopes to undercut both the enthusiasm and support of Dems behind Obama. These types of attacks may seem stupid or transparent to most voters but to those they are aimed at they might resonate. Bitter people looking for reinforcement of their views may not realize the game McCain is playing. This is why both Bill and Hillary Clinton's roles will be crucial.

They both need to get out there and tell everyone at every opportunity how great Obama is. They need to make it clear that not only should voters choose Obama because he is better than a Republican but because they personally admire him, support him. They cannot leave room for doubt. I would advocate cutting a couple of commercials imploring the former Clinton voters to back Obama and not to vote for McCain out of spite. they could go a long way towards clearing up the idea of lingering resentment.

3. McCain out of the gutter and into the sewage.

I fully expect McCain to throw every nasty idea he can think of at Obama. I would not be at all surprised to hear the McCain cut an ad with a southern white woman accusing Obama of being soft on rapists. McCain has already made attacks on Obama's patriotism and distorted his position on a number of issues. I doubt any topic is going to be off limits to McCain. The question is now, "how far will he fall?"

4. Where is the soul of the GOP

The McCain VP pick will tell us a great deal about the internal struggles and politics of the GOP. If McCain picks Romney it will signal that the well has pretty much run dry. Romney is not a particularly strong candidate for either the VP position or the presidency. His selection reveals that there is no one else available who can sieze the initiative for the next run at the presidency. Romney proved how lackluster he was during the primary. The Romney pick is also bad because he does not match up well at all with Biden.

Romney has no foreign policy experience. Biden has a lot. Romney is not a good debater, Biden is. Romney is not consistent on hardly any issues and cannot give credible explanations why he witched positions. Biden's most obvious change is on the war and he has already apologized and explained that vote.

5. Media Coverage

The other thing to watch is how the media covers the general election. Will they start to actually cover McCain based on the reality and not the constructed myth? It is not very likely given the cognitive dissonance that they are performing right now. They jump through hoop after hoop to explain away McCain's behavior. They give him every benefit of the doubt. Hopefully though his over use of the POW status will cause a backlash or eye role among the press turning his biggest asset against him. Without the press McCain is nothing.

It is probably too much to hope for that they treat the election like it is supposed to be about issues so i would not even bother wasting your time searching for that.

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Biden's Role in Governence

When i clicked on the NYT op ed written by Mark Penn it was with the full intention of finding something to mock. O have very little admiration for Penn and am mystified as to why he continues to receive column inches in major newspapers. Imagine my surprise when i read something i agree with.

From Al Gore on, the role of the vice president seems to have fundamentally changed. It used to be where the winner parked the loser or some other figure that he wanted to neutralize. Now, with the centralization of government power in the White House, the vice president has become essentially a Cabinet head. Indeed, the last two vice presidents have had real portfolios and responsibilities, second only to the president.

Penn is absolutely right (yuck). The power of the VP has come a long way since FDR’s First Vice President John Nance Garner called it a "warm bucket of piss". As the example of the VP's power is the one and only Dick Cheney.

Once in office, Mr. Cheney wound up playing major roles in national security if not running it. He leaves office as one of the first vice presidents in recent history to have no presidential ambitions but also as the least liked No. 2 since Spiro Agnew was forced to resign for accepting bribes. We are again heading for a vice president who, if elected, will be a major and important player in an Obama administration.

Thanks to Cheney and Gore the office now has meaning. The question now becomes what does Joe Biden want to do with it? He is commonly viewed as a foriegn policy guy but i have a hard time imagining that Obama will be willing to abdicate that role to someone. Obama has a pretty firm view of what we need to do in the world and how we need to do it. That means that Biden's area of policy control will be something domestically. My speculation is that that area will be primarily in the field of Justice and Law.

On his Web Page Biden touts several important domestic bills pertaining to the area of Law and Justice. These bills are:

The Second Chance Act, signed into law on April 9, 2008, will assist federal, state and local governments in providing inmates with the tools they need to successfully reintegrate into the community upon their release.

COPS Bill: building upon the revolutionary approach of the successful 1994 Biden Crime Bill while promoting new, innovative programs to focus on today's problems.

THE VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN ACT: "I consider the Violence Against Women Act the single most significant legislation that I’ve crafted during my 35-year tenure in the Senate. Indeed, the enactment of the Violence Against Women Act in 1994 was the beginning of a historic commitment to women and children victimized by domestic violence and sexual assault. Our nation has been rewarded for this commitment. Since the Act’s passage in 1994, domestic violence has dropped by almost 50%, incidents of rape are down by 60%, and the number of women killed by an abusive husband or boyfriend is down by 22%. Today, more than half of all rape victims are stepping forward to report the crime. And since we passed the Act in 1994 over a million women have found justice in our courtrooms and obtained domestic violence protective orders."

People forget that Biden is not only on the Foreign Relations committee but also the Judiciary Committee and the Drug Caucus. He has spent a great deal of his time in the Senate working on these issues and if he cannot have the foriegn relations perhaps he will continue to work in these areas.

Another reason that i feel Biden will try to exert himself in this area is that Obama has not made this a center piece of his campaign. It is one of the areas that i think least has his stamp on it. He has talked some about his "urban policies" but has not made a major push for groundbreaking reform in that area. It means he can leave that to Biden without worrying that Biden will take it in a direction he would not like. Not that that is likely to happen as one of the few policy prescriptions Obama does mention is support for Biden's COPS Bill.

Support Local Law Enforcement: Barack Obama is committed to fully funding the COPS program to combat crime and help address police brutality and accountability issues in local communities. Obama also supports efforts to encourage young people to enter the law enforcement profession, so that our local police departments are not understaffed because of a dearth of qualified applicants.

Biden has to have something to do as VP. Playing the world diplomat is for the Sec of State and attending the worlds funerals is not a particularly appealing job. Biden has to get something out of this so why not policy leadership in the other area he spent his career working in?

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McCain Camp, Obama has No Tough Critics

Well that is not exactly their attack but it is a logical extension of it. In a fund raising E-Mail McCain campaign manager Rick Davis had this to say about the Biden pick.

"Senator Obama's choice in a running-mate once again brings up his questionable judgment when faced with making major decisions," Davis wrote.

"Senator Biden has long been a leading critic of Senator Obama's lack of foreign policy experience. He's criticized Senator Obama for his lack of leadership and judgment on Iraq, Afghanistan and his commitment to meet unconditionally with the leaders of rogue states," he also wrote.

Think about this though, the Obama's toughest critic is on the ticket. This has several implications. One it proves Obama is willing to surround himself with people who disagree with him as he said,

I want somebody who is independent. Somebody who is able to say to me, 'you know what, Mr. President, I think you're wrong on this and here's why' and will give me (applause) who will help me think through major issues and consult with me, would be a key advisor.

The second implication is that Obama's toughest critic is willing to accept a position on the ticket. Biden clearly thinks Obama is up to the task so harsh a critic can he be? If Obama has no harsher critic than someone who thinks he is not very bad then he has no tough critics. He has no tough critics he must be a pretty good choice right? I am sure thats what the McCain camp wanted to say.

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Joementum II orJust Biden Time.

Barack Obama announced his choice for Vice President today. His choice is the Senior Senator from Delaware Joe Biden. Everyone on the web has given their thoughts on the Biden choice and i am going to be no different on this occasion. I like Biden.

There are a number of potential negatives to the pick.

1. Biden is a "balance pick" designed to sure up perceived weaknesses.

The problem with balance picks is that they admit to the weakness in the principle. Obama has spent a great deal of time fighting on foriegn policy grounds and his chosen running mate is someone perceived as a foriegn policy specialist. It is a potential admission that Obama needed help in this area. While the conventional wisdom is that Biden will solve this weakness in the minds of voters i am rather dubious of this claim. People vote the top of the ticket and that is still Obama v McCain. Obama will always be making the final decision and while Biden can advise if you think Obama cannot handle the job the fact his VP can would not be as helpful as CW providers think.

2. Biden is a long time Washington guy and as such does not reinforce central theme of Obama campaign.

Biden has been in the senate for some time now. Obama has predicated his candidacy on his outsider status and his "change" theme. Biden is not that guy. He has a great deal of experience and also some responsibility for the problems Obama rails against. It comes with the territory after such a long tenure. This is not the to say Biden is not liberal or a DINO. Biden is a more liberal Democrat despite his atrocious Bankruptcy Bill.

3. Biden is going to be a story.

The star of this show is Barack Obama. People will go to the polls and decide if Obama has the gravitas to lead our country. When voters make their choice they should not be thinking about what the potential vice president has said or done. Biden is someone who is not afraid of the camera or the spotlight. He will be center stage at some point in the campaign for what he has said and detract from the Obama campaigns message. Biden loves to talk and can be unfailingly blunt when doing so. It is a risk to have someone like Biden as the number two because of his outspoken personality and nature.

Those are the negatives. The positives of the Biden pick though are numerous. Biden brings something to the ticket no other Dem would, otherwise he would not have been the guy.

1. Biden will kick ass.

Joe Biden is not afraid to mix it up with his opponents and call them out for lies and pandering. His great line about Rudi Giuliani, "There's only three things he mentions in a sentence: a noun, and a verb and 9/11," is one of the best in recent political history setting Giuliani up as a figure to ridicule. That is Joe Biden he has wit and he has timing and he has no fear. In his introduction today he had a great line,

You sit at your kitchen table and worry about how to pay the bills. That's not something John McCain has to worry about. He worries about which of the seven kitchen tables to sit at.

The reason that this is such a good attribute is that McCain lies constantly. He hides behind his POW status in order to avoid tough questions about his policies and his actions. Biden will be the lead Armored Division for the Dems hitting McCain on his gaffes and never letting him up.

2. Debate Skills

Part of what makes Biden such a good attacker makes him a good debater. He will confront whoever McCain places opposite him and not let him lie like Edwards and Lieberman did. Biden will tear his opponent apart and his performance should prevent the VP Debate from being a negative for the Dems.

3. His Image

Biden's image is that of a working class guy made good. Someone who has not forgotten where he came from. He rides Amtrack to work. The media should love to portray Biden as "the guy from the neighborhood". If they like to portray Obama as an intellectual or too upper class, Biden will be the opposite. It makes a good team photo. For the people who care about our candidates being seen as working class guys Biden fits that image. For what the VP is worth he should help Obama with some more reticent voters in the Rust Belt states.

4. Foreign Policy Gravitas

Obama's vice president was requested by Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili in the recent crisis. Biden is a widely acknowledged foreign policy guy. This means that when McCain makes his ridiculous statements about his policies for the world Biden will be able to highlight just how dangerous and reactionary they are. As long as he is seen as acting in his own words he will have a great amount of credibility and should receive press coverage to match. The biggest issue with the Dems has been their inability to hit McCain and make people understand how dangerous they are Biden solves this.

Over all i like Biden as the VP pick. There was no perfect choice but Biden seems fairly good to me. He has some risks but also a great deal of upside. As long as Biden can handle the pressure of the contest and act much in the same way he did during the primaries he should be a welcome addition to the ticket. Obama/Biden '08!

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